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The Shepherd and the Star - Part VII
The Morning Star slowly orbited Europa as a cluster of asteroids flowed by. One by one, small transfer pods tore into space beneath an array of bright green flashes. As the speed of ancient shuttlecrafts, they competed towards the freighter as it floated lightly above the ice world, locked in a long, slow spin like a lifeless whale amidst an assortment of shipwrecks. After they had all arrived, they gradually began to dock with the freighter. Vahagnae, Daniels and the Agency boss stood in on the crowded docking platform as each of the external doors receded, and revealed a trail of lengthy tubes linked directly to the interior of the small pods. In the same order in which they had arrived in orbit, the pilots of the vessels began to enter to platform through the vast pipes, and then step up and form a line. Three men and three women, dressed in combat suits similar to the Commander’s, only in a variety of different dreary colours. There was a short silence before the boss cleared his throat and stepped forward. *‘Fighters of the Agency and the United Alliance, welcome aboard the Morning Star. I am one of the overseers of the Agency, and have called you all here because of the enormity of your next mission. It requires something that has never been done before. It requires you all to work together. The laws of our Agency state that this should only happen in missions considered to be so dire in their urgency that there is seen to be no other possible approach to resolving it. You were selected because we feel, as a system of government, that you six are the finest at what you do, for a strand of different reasons. Your individual strengths will contribute greatly to the common strength of all of you,’ he proclaimed and slid out a small remote from his belt, and then fingered the metal shell of it with both hands as the agents performed a joint salute. They were as machines to their boss’s will ‘the data you require has been uploaded to this neural inhibitor. As you well know, this isn’t a painless process, but you’re all so used to it by now.’ He held the small device up, which proceeded to tint in the dim light of the docking bay. It looked like an oval-shaped calculator. The boss lowered it again and began to press the tiny switches on its face, before then hitting the central button. The six agents suddenly twitched as they became hit by an array of headaches and sharp interior pains in their heads. Their neural implants were receiving a tonne of information, and the agents were the vessels for that knowledge. There was an uncomfortable silence as they struggled to remain still, within which Daniels and Vahagnae split sore glances. The process seemed to be going well, normal, but there was something which the boss had failed to take into account in his mantle of ignorance. There were seven agents aboard the Morning Star, and he had not even considered that the seventh was still hooked up to the Agency’s neural net. The Commander was sleeping quietly in her quarters on the aft deck, lost in a familiar dream when the headaches assaulted, and bombarded the defective machines lodged in her skull. ‘I’m ending this, Commander! You’re too much of a fucking risk to the Agency, to democracy! We were both given orders. I follow mine! Commander? Where are you? Commander?!-’ The Commander ignored the fume as it boomed over the silence and checked the ammunition to her pistol. Just a round left, she noticed as she kept her back to the heap of crates, hidden. This hallway was narrow, strange, arched and pointed with bright flickering lights imbedded into the slanting walls. It was the same hallway she had dreamt about before, yet now it seemed so clear. She could almost really be there this time, but she wasn’t. Her slumbering body toppled off the couch and trembled against the coldness of the ground as the update sent her neural system to spark and glow, and her brain began to pulse quicker than her heart. She stepped out from behind the crates like a ghost, keeping her every movement silent and centred, as for the first time she stepped out of the shadows and started to creep up the hallway with her pistol in front of her at all times. She felt her feel heavier than normal to move, and curiosity led her eyes down. Dunes of dust layered the floor plates, and as the lights flickered she noticed more of it coiled in the air. She stopped breathing. She pushed forward. The hatch at the end of the passage creaked open by itself, and she noticed that each of the plates which held the structure in place seemed somewhat unique, different from each other, almost as if it had been constructed out of different types of elements, like an experiment. The plates hadn’t been painted over. It wasn’t finished. She stepped through the hatchway and into another hallway of the same design, only longer and devoid of any crates of objects. She took a fateful glance over her shoulder and a revelation all of a sudden attacked her. The sign on the hatch was marked ‘Storage’. She had been hiding in storage for countless dreams and now she was out, and everything was empty. In her curiosity, she had lowered the weapon by her side. It came to her defence once more as that fierce voice shattered the sudden stillness. *‘Commander?!-’ She turned onto her front and her head jerked from left to right as she quivered hysterically. Her eyelids fluttered. The Commander hurried, using the aim of her pistol to scan the arched crossway as her feet brought her around a corner and through another open hatchway as the voice, enraged, called out to her again louder. Before long she was running, breathless, and it was then that the lights went out. The six gradually reopened their eyes and met the boss’s, before they shared concerned looks to each other. The boss folded his arms, alarmed by their reactions. *‘...S-Sir?’ one of them, a tall bulky man without a helmet, broke the unease ‘What the hell was that?’ *‘An neural update-...’ the boss started. *‘-That was something else.’ Another one said, this time a young woman with dark hair and a ponytail ‘-Some kind of ship,’ another interrupted, ruled by a new feeling called anxiety ‘Sir, what the hell is going on?’ *‘I just...’ the boss began again ‘I just uploaded you the mission-...’ *‘-wait.’ Vahagnae pressed him to one side and stepped in ‘What is it, agents? What did you see?’ *‘Captain, I don’t think-...’ the boss tried once more. *‘-Shut up!’ Daniels ordered and stepped forward. *‘-You can’t order me to-...’ he tried again. *‘-Just shut it.’ Daniels commanded. *‘Agents. What did you see?’ Vahagnae instructed, and watched the disorientated agents stare at each other. One of them, the first to initially speak, looked beyond their three superiors as the docking bay blast door unsealed and someone stepped through. *‘We saw her.’ He nodded as the Commander resealed the door. *‘Commander, get out!’ the boss yelled as he turned dangerously and started to march over to her. She wasn’t intimidated even a little as he protested and strode over to her heatedly. The next thing he felt was the back of a pistol whip his nose and then the odd, uncertain sensation of a concussion as he collapsed to the ground. The agents all raised their weapons at her as Daniels shifted Vahagnae safely out of the way. *‘Who are you?’ the male agent spoke again ‘What were you running from? And what the hell are you doing striking a superior representative of the Agency!?’ *‘I am the Commander.’ She declared and tossed the boss a short, cool glance as he backed against the wall, unable to speak beneath the gushing blood spilling out of his nose ‘The update was corrupt. This man failed a duty of care he owed to the agents of our service. He is relieved. He should have considered some things. The update wasn’t finished. The mission is this. I’ve been designated leader of the assignment. My knowledge and expertise on the General should be enough to take her down successfully.’ *‘Commander, you can’t-...’ Vahagnae said from behind a large crate as his head remained visible. *‘-The Agency isn’t a military organisation, nor is it civilian. It’s outside of both. It’s alone, and it doesn’t take orders from any. They can do whatever they want, for the great purpose of retaining peaceful relations between all imposing bodies to circumvent a course of carnage and terror. If you stand against me, then you stand against the Agency. Do you understand?’ she affirmed and waited. The agents proceeded to look at each other, mystified. They all looked to the male who asked the questions, and then they waited too. There was an empty moment, and then he dropped his weapon down by his side. *‘The Agency is sovereign.’ He said, and nodded down the line. They followed his example after they nodded back ‘You’re the Commander?’ *‘Yeah, I’m the Commander.’ She confessed and finally slid her pistol into its holster on her thigh ‘What of it?’ *‘...I’ve heard of you.’ He admitted ‘Just little things in Agency meetings. You’re liked.’ *‘Colonel Daniels, add the Solace coordinates to the ‘Stars’ database and Captain, lay in a course.’ She ordered ‘you should probably get your men to prepare a transport, preferably armed, the General’s gonna be expecting us and nothing too big, we want to be able to dock with that thing, unless you propose another way in.’ * ‘...Well, we’ll just have to see when we get there. Commander.’ Vahagnae stepped back out into the light as Daniels rushed up and out. He bowed his head slightly, respecting how easily the Commander seemed to be able to control the situation, before he saw the boss now unconscious ‘I’ll have this guy dosed up in the infirmary so that he doesn’t cause anymore trouble.’ The Commander nodded, turned and started to climb the steps up to the bridge levels, followed distantly by her new team. The decks of the Morning Star screeched as she rotated and faced the ocean of starry blackness that lay in the direction of the solar system’s edge, before it lit up in a brilliant green light and disappeared.